Hi, I am trying to understand what the ".emacs file" is exactly and also where to find it on my system (unless that is I have to myself first create it, and then of course where now to save it).

I am following the setup instructions from: "http://play.org/links/lisp-setup" ...and I am trying to do this on x86 Ubuntu 8.10. The instructions are written for SBCL, Emacs w3m and Slime on Ubuntu.

1. I am sure that sbcl is installed correctly because I can access it via the sbcl command from a shell window.2. The instructions on the Slime install are not working for me either but I am mostly concerned with just getting SBCL recognized within Emacs

I created and saved an .emacs txt file (based off exactly what was mentioned in the link above) within my Ubuntu username documents folder (this finally got me somewhere and I still don't know why I can't see the .emacs file when I go to this folder) and below is what I get when I try and issue the "M-x run-lisp" command within Emacs:"Can't exec program: /usr/local/bin/sbcl

Process inferior-lisp exited abnormally with code 1 "

I am a total newbie and I just wanted to see if someone could explain to me some of the install concepts at the least as I really just want to get Lisp (sblc or whatever) running within Emacs so I can start writing (and hands on learning...I have enough books already) Lisp code and learning and becoming efficient with all the useful Emacs keybinds, etc.

lispy333 wrote:Hi, I am trying to understand what the ".emacs file" is exactly and also where to find it on my system (unless that is I have to myself first create it, and then of course where now to save it).

The ".emacs" file is an Emacs configuration file, following standard Unix convention of configuration files starting with a single dot, which are by default hidden by 'ls' command and most Linux file managers. It is in your home directory. The easiest way to find/create it is from Emacs itself, with 'C-x C-f ~/.emacs RET'.

You might try this tutorial to set up Slime with clbuild. I don't know how 'run-lisp' works in default Emacs, but presumably you have to point it at the SBCL executable, which is somewhere else than /usr/local/bin/sbcl.